CHAPTER III
A QUESTION OF ECONOMY
“I love music myself,” said Robbie Belle, lifting serene eyes from her porridge, “but to-day is Thanksgiving Day.”
“Oh!” sighed Berta, as she clasped her hands—those thin nervous hands with the long fingers that Robbie Belle admired all the more for their contrast with her own dimpled ones, “think of hearing Caruso and Sembrich together in grand opera! I could walk all the way on my knees.”
“What!” cried Robbie Belle in wide-eyed astonishment, her spoon half way to her mouth, “walk seventy miles! And miss the Dinner?”
The graduate fellow at the head of their table looked quite sad as she nodded her pretty head, though to be sure her napkin was hiding her lips.
“Why!” gasped Robbie Belle, freshman, “but Dinner is to begin at three and last till almost six. And we are going to have salted almonds and nesselrode pudding and raw oysters and chocolate peppermints and turkey and sherbet and macaroons and nuts and celery and Brussels sprouts and everything. We are painting the place-cards this morning and one is for you. It is a shame for you to sacrifice it just to hear grand opera, Miss Bonner. Are you really intending to take the nine o’clock train?”
Again the fellow nodded. Robbie Belle’s wondering gaze rested a moment on Berta’s gypsy face alight now with an intensity of longing. Deliberately depositing her spoon on one side of her saucer and her buttered bit of roll on the other she devoted her entire attention to this marvel.
“I cannot understand,” she said clearly, “it is only singing. And to-day is Thanksgiving Day. It comes once a year.”